WASHINGTON, D.C. (June 27, 2012) – The Data Transparency Coalition, the only group unifying the technology industry in support of federal data reform, today announced that its members will present live demonstrations showing the enormous potential of the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act (DATA Act) to enhance federal transparency and help prevent waste, fraud and abuse.

DATA Act Demo Day, featuring live presentations from Teradata Corporation, Microsoft, IPHIX, Level One Technologies, Synteractive, MarkLogic, and Elder Research, Inc., will take place July 10th at 10 a.m. in Microsoft’s Innovation and Policy Center (901 K St NW, 11th floor, Washington DC 20001). Members of the media and general public are asked to RSVP at datademo.eventbrite.com

Now with downloadable kml displaying your tax dollar expenditures! You’ll have to supply a Zip Code and look to the bottom right hand corner of the results map frame border. Note: if you look at this example data for 37203 you’ll see that each job is valued at $762,438 (for a three year span).

“Somebody has to do something, and it’s just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us”! – Jerry Garcia

Please note the call for session and talk proposals for the International Open Government Data Conference 2012 to be held on July 10-12th in Washington DC and co-hosted by the World Bank and the US Government’s Data.gov team:

With both an “Open Government” and “Open Development” perspective, the theme of the conference is “Putting Data to Work”. We’re looking for practical, technology and policy focussed contributions that address key questions like:

What is the story of open government data over the last two years and how are we seeing the data put to work?

Are Open Development and Open Government really social and economic opportunities?

How do we avoid the trap of focusing just on compliance rather than the full potential of Open Data?

What are successful applications involving citizen-generated data and it’s combination with official sources?

How to manage your government data assets with the same rigor and consideration as any piece of public infrastructure? Should we be investing in open data at a time of fiscal austerity?

What open data related standards and policies are most useful?

What is the intersection of Big Data and Open Data? What role does cloud computing have to play?This will be a high-level event with international government, private sector and civil society participation and although the number of formal session slots is limited, there will be other opportunities to participate and network, including lightning talks and an un-conference / open space.

ENGAGE project, funded by the European Commission under the e-Infrastructures Programme, aims at the deployment and use of an advanced service infrastructure, incorporating distributed and diverse public sector information resources as well as data curation, semantic annotation and visualisation tools, capable of supporting scientific collaboration and governance-related research from multi-disciplinary scientific communities, while also empowering the deployment of open governmental data towards citizens. More information.

About ENGAGE Project
Open data provide an unprecedented opportunity for societies to move towards transparency, evidence-based decisions, enhanced cohesion, public engagement and trust. Public sector information may be offered as “open data” in many forms and through different media: from simple datasets describing traffic or unemployment, to web services linking and mashing information from different sources, to interactive visualization of complex phenomena, to citizen-based data gathering and transmission. This way, new information is made available to scientists, citizens and enterprises for developing and offering value-adding services, thus forming a supply chain around publicly available open data.

In this context, the ENGAGE project (http://www.engage-project.eu), funded by the European Commission under the e-Infrastructures Programme, aims at the deployment and use of an advanced service infrastructure, incorporating distributed and diverse public sector information resources as well as data curation, semantic annotation and visualisation tools, capable of supporting scientific collaboration and governance-related research from multi-disciplinary scientific communities, while also empowering the deployment of open governmental data towards citizens.

Editorial: spend the $$$ used for petroleum busing rural kid’s on building out high speed bandwidth, make teachers aware of open source like edubuntu and libre office and use statewide computer purchases to knock down prices / costs.

You are cordially invited to watch a webcast and participate in a liveblog during an event at the World Bank about the new Open Government Partnership (OGP). The OGP (http://www.opengovpartnership.org), launched on September 2011 under the leadership of the eight founding countries, is a multilateral, multi-stakeholder initiative that seeks to enhance transparency, participation and collaboration between governments and civil society. Since its launching, membership has increased to over 50 countries.

Presentations will be given by Caroline Mauldin, of the U.S Department of State and Juan Pardinas, General Director of the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness, civil society representative for Mexico at OGP Steering Committee. Nathaniel Heller, Executive Director of Global Integrity will serve as discussant.

They will address questions such as why is OGP an opportunity for countries? What have been recent developments and challenges related to OGP? What is the value added that civil society brings to OGP work and what is its role in the process? among other issues..

Chair:

Robert Hunja, Manager, WBI Open Government

Speakers:
Caroline P. Mauldin joined the Obama Administration in September 2009. She leads the policy work of the Under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy and Human Rights on a range of issues including economic security, financial inclusion, innovation, and global partnerships. She is also the Under Secretary’s lead speechwriter. Prior to joining the State Department, Caroline worked for global microfinance leader ACCION International and was on the founding team of the affiliated think-tank, the Center for Financial Inclusion. She has also worked on international trade justice at the international development NGO, Oxfam America, and on public health issues at President Jimmy Carter’s organization, The Carter Center, in Atlanta, Georgia.
Juan Pardinas is General Director of the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness. Prior to his current appointment, Juan was a researcher at the Center for Research on Development (CIDAC) in Mexico City. He also held professorial appointments at UNAM and ITAM in Mexico and the London School of Economics. For two years he was CNN’s Spanish-language correspondent in India and Japan. He writes a Sunday column for Reforma daily.